What a Character!

As a little girl, and quite honestly, even as an adult, I have often been referred to as a character. Aunts and Uncles would say to my Mom, “She’s quite a character, isn’t she?”  And, teachers at parent-teacher conferences would say, “Your daughter is quite a character at times.”  Oh, granted, I could be a stinker.  I could agitate another child to the point of tears or terrors – that included my older brother, friends, classmates, cousins, or anyone that I felt was easy prey.  I just liked to have fun.  I was often a joker, a clown of sorts – sometimes it was to hide my own inferiority, insecurities, fears, and inadequacies.  Sometimes, however, I was just being “me”!

The dictionary defines “character” as the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing.  Further down the definition reads: “qualities of honesty, courage, or the like; integrity”.  Hmmhmm. . .I did look a lot like my father. . .so I was always told. 

Proverbs 11:6 (MSG) Good character is the best insurance. . .and Proverbs 20:3 (MSG) it’s a mark of good character to avert quarrelsome.  Some people will equate character with integrity and there are numerous scripture references to concur.

Hebrews 1:3 presents character in a way that when someone says to me today, “you’re a character!” I rather smile for the Greek word character used in this scripture is the word charaktér. The scripture represents Jesus as the “exact impression” of the nature of God.  Used here it means a stamp or impression that was used in the first century to refer to the “character” or impression made by a seal or a die-cut like an engraver would use to me the exact impression of a seal or letter.  Jesus Christ is exactly like His father and revealed the Father when He walked on this earth.  In John 14:9 we read “To see me is to see the Father.” Over the past two years, our ladies’ Bible study has studied the character of God through Worship in the Old Testament Tabernacle and most recently in the Feasts of the Tabernacle.  Wow!

I’ve thought a lot about the character I’ve become. And while I know that the word “become” is a process so I am still “becoming”, but, I wonder, “do I reflect the “exact impression” of the One about whom I have spent years of my life studying; who was willing to give His all, to willingly sacrifice and lay down His life so that I might be able to have a life? I have always looked like my earthly father.  I have his hair, his eyes and many of his features and mannerisms. When my oldest son was a little boy, many would say how very much he looked like us.

As children grow, we do hope they take on our good charaktér. How much more, then, as we grow in our faith, does our Father want us to take on His charaktér?  I have the traits of my dad, his work ethic, his honesty, his integrity, his sincerity, and his logical abilities. . .do I have the traits like my heavenly father as well?  Do I have his features of compassion, of love, of caring. . .am I a charaktér?  An exact impression of Jesus? 

In the book of Acts, we read that the word “Christian” (literally ‘little Christ’) was coined first in Antioch.  While it is true that this was a mocking term, I am certain that it came about because the disciples had charaktér, the impression of their Father stamped indelibly in each of them. 

When anyone now says, “you are a character!” I think to myself, “yes, I am a charaktér . . .I am the image of my Father – my heavenly Father and it doesn’t bother me one bit to be a character or a Christian for in so doing, I am letting the world around me know that I belong to a family – one that is out of this world! - RS